It never bothered Narcissa Malfoy that her front door now opened out onto a sterile white hospital corridor, because Narcissa Malfoy never bothered to open her front door. It was such a terribly plebian thing to do, to open one's own front door- what on earth were house elves for if not to scurry about performing just such menial tasks as that?
They answered the doorbell when it rang, and even in such cases as this, when all Narcissa heard was a key turning in the lock, and so knew that it could only be her husband or her son, she would send Peepsy, her personal favorite, and come to think of it, the only elf she could even seem to find lately- to show whomever it was into her private sitting room. This was what she did now, with a wave of her hand, not rising from the small table set for two that Draco had vacated several moments before. He'd said he'd be right back, and so she was reasonably sure it was Draco that had just let himself in.
A small frown creased her brow. Draco came and Draco went- ever the dutiful son, he visited her nearly every day. But Lucius- where was her husband? Draco had told her that he'd gone off on an extended hunting trip with several friends, but… somehow she was sure he'd never left her for this long before. Then again, her memories seemed rather hazy and unreliable lately… and she couldn't quite shake the feeling that there was something terribly wrong she just wasn't putting her finger on…
She glanced down at her wedding ring; the sight of it, as always, soothed her. Nothing could be wrong with her Lucius so long as the stone in that ring was sound. And it was; as clear and sparkling as ever. Allowing herself a small, inward sigh of relief, Narcissa turned her elegant, ice-blonde head toward Peepsy, who had just entered the sitting room to announce Draco's return- "and Mistress," the elf added, a tad more nervously than usual, "Master Draco is bringing a guest with him."
Narcissa sat up straighter, instantly more alert than she had felt in days. A guest- well, this was unexpected. For Draco to arrive alone, then leave and return with a guest once dinner was already underway- it was thoughtless and inconvenient and she wanted to be irritated, she really did, but… on the other hand, it had been so long since she'd had a guest. She felt a little thrill of excitement run through her.
"Well, what are you waiting for, Peepsy?" she snapped. "Show them in and set another place, for Merlin's sake!"
The elf rushed to do her bidding, and a moment later Draco appeared in the doorway of the room with a young woman on his arm. This surprised Narcissa enormously. She hadn't seen her Daughter-in-Law in quite a while, leading her to suspect that there might be some sort of "trouble in paradise", for all that Draco denied it- but she was relatively sure that Pansy had not looked like this.
Then again, what other young woman would Draco bring to dinner with his mother?
She rose to her feet and came around the table to greet them. "Pansy, dear," she said, frowning slightly, "what on earth have you done with your hair?"
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Surprisingly enough, the visit actually went fairly well. Draco sat his mother down and told her that Pansy had had to leave, suddenly and indefinitely, due to pressing health reasons (and there was truth to that statement, wasn't there?) and that this was, in fact, his close friend Hermione. He left it at that.
Narcissa, for her part, might have been inclined to be rather more suspicious and less welcoming, had Hermione not been so obviously and visibly distressed. But the fact was that Hermione, still fresh from her encounters with Harry and Rita, each of which had been difficult, to say the least, in its own way, was- as Draco himself had observed- flushed, disheveled, and puffy-eyed from crying… and Narcissa responded to this as many a mother would; with immediate warmth and concern. She had, after all, been sorely lacking in anyone to fuss over for quite some time now.
It was true that, had she known Hermione's true circumstances, she would have looked down on her as something barely human- perhaps a notch above a house elf- and certainly not fit company for her son. This was how she'd been taught to think all her life, first by her parents and then by her husband, and she didn't know how to think any other way. Among her own family and friends, however, once etiquette and protocol had been dispensed with, she was perfectly capable of being a caring and demonstrative woman- and it was this side of her that was brought out now, by the sight of this pretty young woman (who, being a friend of her son's, must obviously be a quality person) so deeply shaken and unhappy.
"Darling, whatever is the matter?" she exclaimed, taking Hermione from Draco by the hand and leading her, surprised but unresisting, over to a nearby chaise. Narcissa sank gracefully onto the soft, velvet upholstered piece of furniture, pulling Hermione with her- then, the silk robes she had donned for dinner with her son rustling faintly, leaned toward her strange new guest and gently reached up to frame Hermione's face with both her hands.
"You really are quite pretty, aren't you?" Narcissa murmured, moving her cool, elegant, long-fingered hands to the waterfall of Hermione's dark hair, gathering it loosely, pushing it back and up, playing. "Your hair is phenomenal, darling; many witches would kill for hair this lush. It just needs a little care. But you shouldn't cry in public, love; it turns your complexion all blotchy… and you don't want that, not when you've such beautiful skin. It's positively your best feature!"
She turned abruptly to her son, who was watching all this with his mouth slightly agape. "Draco, where are your manners?" she demanded, "can't you see this young woman is distraught? Offer her your handkerchief at once!"
Though Draco snapped immediately to attention, it was Narcissa to took the handkerchief from his hand an instant later; Narcissa who dampened it in a pitcher of ice water that stood on the coffee table, and began gently dabbing Hermione's hot-flushed face with it. "You're a little warm, dear," she commented as she did so. "You should let my son have a look at you. He's medically trained, did you know that?"
A second later, Hermione was sobbing again.
She just found herself completely overwhelmed by the situation- by the warm reception she'd received, so very different from what she'd been preparing herself for- by the concern in Narcissa's eyes, the gentleness in her hands, the mannerisms she shared with Draco- that Draco, in fact, must have picked up over his lifetime from her- the fact that she had a scent about her which was distinctly reminiscent of Hermione's own mother's favorite perfume. And the pain of losing Harry- his friendship as well as his love- was still right there on the surface- so new, so raw, as Harry himself had said- and all these things, combined, pushed her right over the edge- and now she was embarrassed, too- she'd known Draco's mother for a sum total of about five minutes and here she was, breaking down entirely on the woman's chaise lounge- and so she buried her face in her hands and tried to swallow back the tears, but all she accomplished was a heart-rending, choked sort of weeping.
Narcissa looked up at Draco, eyes wide with alarm. "Draco, there is something terribly the matter here! What on earth is going on?"
Draco dropped to one knee beside the chaise which held the two most important people in his life. He managed, somehow, at the same time, to lean into Hermione, offering her his shoulder to dry on, and also tilt his head toward his mother, muttering, "she had to break off her engagement today, mum. It's been-" his lips twisted down, briefly, in a frown- "difficult for her. Much more difficult than I think she anticipated. It's why I brought her here. I don't think she should be alone."
"Merlin, no!" Narcissa breathed in agreement. "Why didn't you say something before? Honestly, men. Sometimes I wonder what happened to the sense God gave you, Draco. Shouldn't be alone, indeed! You don't say?"
Draco smiled a little into the tumult of Hermione's hair. That sudden hint of sharpness in his mother's tone- it was like a brief, yet powerful, little snapshot of the mother he'd known all his life- and lost when his father had died, and confusion had descended on her for so much of the time.
Narcissa, for her part, wrapped one arm around her son and the other around Hermione- (the poor, poor thing- a broken engagement, such heartache- distraught, did Draco say? No, really?)- lowered her head until her lips were practically brushing the dark-haired girl's ear, murmuring soothingly to her; a low, meaningless, reassuring stream of words.
"It's all right, sweetheart, it's okay… I know it hurts, but it will get better, you'll get past this, wait and see. And Draco's here for you, I can see he cares about you. He'll look after you and so will I- you're welcome here anytime, day or night, love, we're both here for you, we're here. We're here…."
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In the corridors, Rita prowled, searching diligently for any trace of Draco or Hermione. She hadn't become the mega-successful reporter she was by ignoring her instincts… and her instincts were screaming at her now. There was something going on here- for two people who had hated each other as long and as fiercely as Draco Malfoy and that little Granger trollop had, the exchange she'd just witnessed between the two of them had felt… off, somehow. Lacking. There was a story here, she just knew it. There was a story, and it was big. And Malfoy, damn him, had merely been deflecting her from it when he had escorted her away. He'd told her nothing of any import regarding his trial, and had left her right next to the front desk, under the baleful, hawk-like glare of that bitch of a receptionist. It had taken some doing to get past her again, and that was the truth. Bloody traitor, that's what Malfoy was, protecting that uppity little mudblood from her- and after all the lovely, glowing things she'd written about him and his family, their charitable contributions, the wedding. Well, she wouldn't paint such a pretty picture of him in the future, that was for damn sure.
And there was a story here, she just knew it.
So in the corridors, Rita prowled.
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She had not managed to uncover the story by the start of the trial. By the time the trial was nearing completion, however, Draco and Hermione's involvement had become common knowledge. And for the wizarding world's now-most-infamous couple since a beautiful young witch from a prominent family had publicly wed a centaur in the year 1348, the fallout was enormous.
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Draco sat ramrod-straight in the defendant's chair, eyes forward, face like stone, giving no satisfaction whatsoever to the dozens of people who crowded the Ministry courtroom, most of whom bore Draco no love, and would have given an arm and a leg to see a single crack appear in his façade of icy composure.
Rita Skeeter, for example, had a prominent seat in the press section and was dictating to her Quick Quotes Quill in a fast and furious whisper- and her remarks about Draco, if her previous day's article in the Prophet was anything to go by, were far from kind. Hermione, where she was seated in the gallery, in a choice spot that allowed her to catch Draco's eye every now and again and give him a discreet nod of support, was having a hard time restraining herself from physically lunging at the detestable woman. Goddamned social parasite, she thought furiously- and that was a strong testament to just how angry she was, because it was not normally in her straight-laced nature to swear, even mentally. But when she thought of that article Rita had penned months ago about Draco's wedding to Pansy- the fawning praise the woman had lavished on him back when the Malfoy family's fortunes had been high- the hypocrisy was nearly enough to choke Hermione in her seat.
Though generally a kind person by nature- kind to a fault, as most of the house elves on staff at Hogwarts would attest, Hermione seriously regretted ever having freed Rita from that glass bottle back in fourth year. She would like to have forced her back into it right there in the courtroom, she reflected, as she ground her teeth in silent, impotent rage and dug her fingernails into her palms nearly hard enough to draw blood.
And believe it or not, Rita wasn't the worst of it. No, the worst of it was the two-person team that was prosecuting Draco on behalf of the Ministry; Percy Weasley and one of the last people Hermione had ever wanted to see again in her life- she'd hardly been able to believe her eyes when the woman had walked into the courtroom (seeking out Hermione amongst the crowd and giving her a look of pure, undiluted venom as she did so)- Marietta Edgecombe.
Suffice it to say, there would be no quarter given here; no mercy shown. These two were bureaucrats to the very bottoms of their stiff-starched, paper-pushing souls, interested only the letter of the law- deplorable cowards, in Hermione's opinion, who hadn't fought in the war, preferring to hide behind bureaucracy and red tape- but who were more than eager to strut their stuff in the public eye, puffed up with self-importance, now that the danger had passed. She compared them mentally to Dolores Umbridge, that nightmare-come-to-life from her fifth year in Hogwarts (the same year Marietta's abiding resentment toward Hermione had been born, as a matter of fact.) Harry had confided in her once that it had been during that same year that Dumbledore had told him people couldn't be neatly classified as either Good or Death Eaters- there were people out there who didn't fit either category. Umbridge had been one such person. Percy and Marietta were two more examples, cut from the exact same cloth. They had certainly never been Voldemort-supporters, but neither were they good people. Of this, Hermione was positive.
And if her thoughts toward Marietta were unkind, the young prosecutor more than returned the favor. In fact, a large part of her prosecution strategy hinged on demonizing Hermione to all present in the courtroom. After all, the binding spell between Draco and Hermione had become common knowledge through the testimony of Dumbledore and Snape, and then of Draco himself who, preternaturally calm and unruffled on the stand, had insisted once again, as he had first done to Ron mere hours after the final battle had ended, that he had performed the spell as a last resort to save Hermione's life.
"Because you love her," Marietta had sneered, rolling her eyes. As if a proven Death Eater were capable of such a thing as love, her expression had said. As if the woman who broke the heart of Harry Potter were capable of loving in return.
It was this fact that Marietta had returned to time and again in her prosecution; Hermione's "betrayal", as Marietta put it, of the wizarding world's best loved hero since Gordric Gryffindor. The young prosecutor knew that Draco's best defense- his only defense, really- lay in the fact that he had saved that hero's best friend and erstwhile fiancée from certain death during the battle- so while Percy laid the groundwork for the case in his dry, methodical, detail-oriented way, droning on about Dark Marks and Death Eater initiations (only Percy, who had all the charisma and oratory skill of Professor Binns, could make these things sound boring), ascertaining from witness after witness, and indeed from Draco himself- who admitted it freely, emotionlessly, showing neither pride nor remorse- that he had indeed been a loyal follower of Voldemort, right up to the final battle, it fell to Marietta to play on the emotions of those present.
By far the prosecution's biggest dilemma was the binding spell- the fact that any punishment imposed on Draco would automatically be imposed on Hermione as well. So the strategy Marietta devised was to attempt to eradicate any sympathy whatsoever that the court might feel for Hermione. Percy's job was to convince those in power that Draco deserved to be punished. Marietta's appeared to be to convince them that there was nothing wrong with punishing Hermione right along with him; that, indeed, she deserved it too.
And, alarmingly, her strategy seemed to be working. It was the simple fact that Marietta so clearly and fervently believed what she was saying about Hermione that was causing others in the courtroom to begin believing it as well. Hermione could definitely feel a change in the atmosphere- a growing hostility toward her, as well as Draco. The situation was not good. As the prosecutors argued for a life sentence in Azkaban for Draco's crimes (pointing out magnanimously that Hermione need not occupy a prison cell; the binding spell allowed for her to be up to two hundred meters away from Draco without any ill effects, so she could be housed in, say, a disused guard's cottage), Hermione took a page out of Draco's book and squared her shoulders, hardened her countenance, sat up a little straighter, refusing to yield to Marietta's hatred, her venomous words; refusing to be cowed despite the fact that there was no one in the courtroom to whom she could turn for support, save the accused, who had more than enough on his own plate at the moment and to whom she was forbidden to speak during the proceedings anyway. She was alone in increasingly unfriendly territory.
She found herself wondering how Marietta had finally managed to clear her face of the telltale word, SNEAK, with which it had been emblazoned back at Hogwarts after the wretched girl had betrayed the DA and nearly got Harry expelled- and whether there was a way that she, Hermione, could revert the spell back to its original glory even after all these years. She vowed to herself that if she were condemned to live in some abandoned shack on Azkaban Island, allowed to visit Draco for a mere half-an-hour every day, the better to watch him waste away behind bars, it would become her life's mission to bring that SNEAK back, and make it permanent.
Marietta, blissfully unaware of what Hermione was contemplating, was on a roll right now; it was two and a half days into the trial, and the prosecution was wrapping up their case. She was, in fact, making her closing statement.
"-ripped out Harry Potter's heart and stomped it into the ground-" Marietta was raving, practically frothing at the mouth. "Yes, Mister Malfoy here saved her life, but only because the two of them were engaged in a lewd and vulgar affair. And no, she has committed no war crime that would condemn her to Azkaban- but this scarlet woman has committed a crime against decency, against morality, and so I ask you, is her entanglement with the defendant really grounds for letting him off the hook? For allowing him to walk away a free man after all the harm he caused during the war? Hermione Granger chose Draco Malfoy, a Death Eater and a murderer, over her own fiancé Harry Potter, hero to the Light- and so let her live with her choice, I say. Let her accompany him to Azkaban Prison where he belongs. Let her live on the island with her lover; it's a choice she made, and I personally would consider it appropriate atonement for the crime she committed in throwing in her lot with the defendant; not a war atrocity, but a crime of the heart. How dare she betray Harry Potter this way!" Marietta paused for a moment to collect herself, breathing hard, then said simply, "Thank you. Mister Weasley will now make his closing statement on behalf of the prosecution." She took her seat.
Hermione caught Draco's eye and was startled at what she saw- he looked so angry she was sure he was seriously contemplating yet one more murder. Though he'd been able to keep his emotions in check despite all the terrible things that had been said by the prosecutors about him and his family, it appeared that Marietta's verbal attack on Hermione- the latest in an unrelenting series of them- had very nearly pushed him over the edge. She glanced quickly around the courtroom, but no one else seemed aware of the deadly fury simmering just beneath Draco's deceptively calm exterior. She realized that it was, in fact, a sign of just how well she knew him that she could identify the- symptoms, if you will- that escaped everyone else in the room. His eyes were burning with a cold, grey fire; two fever-spots of rage blazing high on his pale cheeks, his jaw locked, body tight with the effort of holding himself in check. All for her. Nothing had moved him this way until Marietta had begun slandering her.
Percy was nearly done now, apparently about to rest the prosecution's case. Hermione hadn't been listening, so deeply engaged had she been in her study of Draco, but she tuned back toward him just in time to hear his closing sentence. Percy had refrained, during most of the proceedings, from speaking emotionally, preferring to state the facts and allow Marietta to be the one who got worked up- and hopefully worked up the courtroom along with her. Now that it had come down to the wire, though, Percy was pulling out all the stops- and, as he had demonstrated years ago in a letter to Ron, advising him to rethink his friendship with Harry Potter while still back in school, Percy could be quite vicious himself when he wanted to.
"-positive that the court must agree with me when I say there is only one place on earth Mister Malfoy belongs- Azkaban Prison. As to the question of Miss Granger, were she truly an innocent in this I would feel badly for her, but still I would press on to see that justice was done. She is not, however, an innocent in my opinion, but must be considered, through what has been demonstrated as her willing involvement with Mister Malfoy, to be his accomplice- and is therefore just as deserving of being sent to Azkaban as he is. He in a cell as he should be; she not imprisoned per se, but still far from the world of decent witches and wizards- a world to which she no longer belongs. I say, let Draco Malfoy go and rot on that rock in the sea, and let him take his little whore with him!"
In this instant, two things happened simultaneously. Draco finally lost his cool altogether- it was hard enough to hear his Hermione slandered by another woman; he would not tolerate it coming from a man- and bolted to his feet with a shout of outrage, set to launch himself physically at Percy, an act which would certainly have sealed his fate- except that just then the door at the rear of the room burst abruptly open, admitting to court two people who had, until this moment, been conspicuously absent from the proceedings.
Ron Weasley and Harry Potter, to be exact.
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It was the first time Harry had made a public appearance, or indeed, left St. Mungo's, since having nearly lost his life in the battle. Ron was half-supporting him, Harry's arm slung over his best mate's shoulder. His other arm was in a white cloth sling, and bandages peeked out here and there from beneath his clothing. He looked wan and disheveled, his hair as much a catastrophe as ever, the jagged X which now marked his forehead (his final souvenir from Voldemort had been a second scar, one which criss-crossed the first) standing out against his pale skin, an angry crimson mark for all to see.
But if he looked weak, he also looked angry. No, scratch angry, he looked bloody pissed. Grim faced Ron looked none too happy either.
There was a moment of shocked silence, and then the murmurs and whispers and soft exclamations began- but Harry silenced them almost as soon as they started by shrugging away from Ron- staggering slightly but keeping his feet- and then proceeded to calmly walk the length of the room, his echoing footsteps the only sound as the assembled witches and wizards watched the greatest hero of their age with bated breath.
Even Rita Skeeter appeared for the moment to have nothing to say; her Quick Quotes Quill was balanced over her notebook, at the ready, but she was simply staring at him along with everyone else, goggle-eyed behind her gaudy rhinestone glasses. This was what absolutely everyone in the wizarding world had been waiting for- Harry Potter's return to the public eye, and along with him a hero of only slightly less renown- Ron Weasley, who, it was reported, had single-handedly fought off over a half-a-dozen Death Eaters while Harry had been engaged with Voldemort, in order to prevent them from rushing to their master's aid. Rita would spend the rest of her life kicking herself for not reacting quickly enough to snap a photo of the two of them there in the doorway, Harry supported by Ron.
She did, however, manage at length to pull herself together enough to grab her camera out of her bag and photograph what happened next; it had appeared as if Harry had been making straight for the front of the room, intending perhaps to approach the magistrate's bench- but such was not, it transpired, the case. When he came abreast of Draco he stopped, turned to face his schoolyard nemesis straight on, the two of them eye-to-eye, as Draco was still on his feet. They stood there for a moment that spun out and out, neither willing to yield the staring contest- black hair to white, green eyes locked on grey, one the hero of the Light, the other, until just recently, the brightest star of the Death Eaters' young elite. Enemies since the day they had met.
And yet there were similarities there as well- the two of them were just as alike as they were different, should one stop to think; alike in height and build, in the fact that they were each as adept in the air as they were on land, that each was an only child; had been his parents' sole hope for the future. There was their shared proclivity for sometimes breaking the rules as a means to an end, and not least of all, they were alike in their love of the same woman.
Who, having half-risen to her own feet in the gallery, was watching even more anxiously than the other witnesses to this strange scene, one hand rising to her chest in an unconscious gesture, coming to rest over her pounding heart.
And then Harry moved again, abruptly, causing several people to gasp reflexively- and many more to gasp a second later when it became clear what he'd just done- he had extended his right hand toward Draco; a gesture which made it patently clear that he wished to shake.
Draco was so shocked that he let his guard down for a moment, his pale eyes, which had been narrowed in suspicion and the anticipation of a new attack, growing wide with surprise. Still, he hesitated to take the proffered hand. He had offered Harry his hand once, and had been refused- publicly humiliated. Years of enmity had passed between that moment and this one, widening the gulf between the two young men all the time. Yes, the two of them had shaken hands a couple of times when they had been Quidditch captains opposite each other during seventh year, but that had been forced on them and, true to a long line of Gryffindor and Slytherin captains before them, they had used such opportunities solely to attempt to break the bones in one another's fingers. This was different; this was voluntary. Today he had the opportunity to do to Harry what Harry had done to him so long ago on the Hogwarts Express; leave him dangling in front of all these people. It was his first instinct and frankly, it was tempting, except- his eyes flicked over to the gallery where the woman he loved more than his own soul- the woman who had saved his soul- half-sat, half-stood, chewing on her lower lip, watching this unexpected stand-off with dark, fretful eyes.
There was Hermione to consider. The way he acted within the next few seconds would have a profound effect on her. He matters to Hermione, Draco had said to Snape not so long ago, speaking of Harry, so now he matters to me.
It was time to put his money where his mouth was. So he took Harry's hand and he shook it, and that was when Rita's camera flashed.
Still with Harry's hand clasped in his, Draco pulled him a step closer. "What is this, Potter?" he asked quietly. "What's going on?"
"I'm saving your arse, Malfoy," Harry muttered. "You gonna let me?"
This hardly sat well with Draco. He didn't particularly care to be in anyone's debt, much less Harry Potter's, but on the other hand, he was a realist. His situation was bad, and that meant Hermione's situation was bad.
"I don't suppose I have a choice," he said.
"Sure you do," Harry shot back. "You can go to Azkaban and take Hermione with you- that's your choice."
Draco gritted his teeth. "I'm never going to like you, Potter."
"Nor I you, Malfoy," Harry replied. "But we have to cooperate on this, don't we? For her." There was no need for him to elaborate- they both knew who he was talking about.
"Alright." Draco sounded resigned. "For her. And if you manage to get me out of here, then… then thanks."
"I'm not doing this as a favor. The way I see it, this puts us fair and square. It's repayment for you saving Hermione."
Draco flared a bit at that. Was Harry trying to re-stake his claim to her? "I didn't do it for you, Potter. You had nothing to do with it."
Now it was Harry's face that tightened in anger. "Be that as it may," he ground out from between his teeth, "it still affected me. I couldn't have borne it if Hermione had died. As angry as I was when I heard about the two of you, I've done a lot of thinking over the past few days and the conclusion I've reached is this- She is first and foremost my best friend, Malfoy; I still care deeply for her in that respect and I always will. I am not going to let her go to Azkaban for your crimes. So let me help you, you great sodding bastard."
Draco regarded him with deep suspicion. "Best friend only?" he asked at length.
Harry sighed resignedly. "I love Hermione enough to want only to see her happy, and I trust her judgment, Malfoy- it's never failed her before. If she truly feels that you are where her happiness lies, then I will support her in that, all the days of her life. That's what friendship is. All right?"
After another moment's consideration, Draco finally appeared satisfied. "All right," he muttered. "So work your miracle, hero-boy."
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And Harry did something that he had never before done in his life; dropping Draco's hand at last- (they had remained clasped together for the duration of their little muttered conversation, a conversation that everyone in the courtroom had been on the edge of their seats trying to hear, with no success)- he turned to address the front of the room; those who held Draco's fate, and by extension Hermione's as well, in their hands.
And with all the confidence of someone who knows damn well that he has, in the eyes of his community, passed from mere hero-status into the realm of 'living legend', he prepared to throw his name- and the weight that was associated with it- around, big time.
Taking a deep breath, he began to speak.